Style Influences: Film Noir

Documentary: The Rules of Film Noir (BBC4, 22nd August 2009)

Notes from DVD:

Films noted:

• The Maltese Falcon (1941) (First actual Film Noir)
• The Big Sleep (1945)
• Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
• The Killers (1946)
• Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
• Out of the Past (1947)
• A Lonely Place (1940) 
• Spellbound (1945) 
• Gun Crazy (1950)

• 'Make it any colour as long as its black'
• 'Use no Fiction but Pulp Fiction'
• Neon signs, Glowing exit signs
• Narration
• Males play a 'hard boiled act'
• Misty streets
• SHADOWS!!!
• Cigarettes
• Rain
• 'Choose a dame with a past and a hero with no future' - women cant be trusted
• Dutch angle shots
• Shadows carve the story up
• Shadows distort actors faces
• Genre inspired by Nosferatu (1922)

The Killers (1946)

Stair Case Shadow - Nosferatu (1922)



The-Maltese-Falcon (1941) Humphrey Bogart with Bird

Images:

• The-Maltese-Falcon (1941) Humphrey Bogart with Bird - http://www.bobbywisecriticism.com/2009/12/19/classic-film-noir-the-maltese-falcon/
• The Killers (1946) - http://striderdemme.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/the-killers-1946/
• Stair Case Shadow - Nosferatu (1922) - http://www.draculas.info/gallery/picture_of_nosferatu-83/